According to Cardinal Tauran, Muslims Brought Religion Back into Europe
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The Osservatore Romano, in its November 27 edition, published a speech of Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, which was held at the beginning of the academic year of the Pontifical Faculty of Theology of Southern Italy, in Naples.
“Which means did God use to come back into our societies? For me this is the great paradox: it is thanks to the Muslims!” the cardinal stated. “The Muslims in Europe, as a significant minority, claim that space be given to God in society,” he said. If religions, -- and more specifically Islam – are also coming back into Western societies as “a danger”, because “fanaticism, fundamentalism, and terrorism have been or still are associated with a perverted form of Islam,” yet this is “obviously not the real Islam, practiced by the majority of Muslims.” And to give some reassurance, he added: “Religions do not wage war, but those who practice them do.”
In the perspective of the interreligious dialogue to which “we are condemned” (sic) Cardinal Tauran explained, it is not a matter of “negotiation” between diplomats, but of a “risk to be taken” (re-sic).
The speech of Cardinal Tauran was published a few days after the release of the letter of Benedict XVI to the Italian senator Marcello Pero, as a preface to his book entitled: Perché dobbiamo dirci cristiani. Il liberalismo, l’Europa, l’ética (Why Must We Call Ourselves Christians: Liberalism, Europe, Ethics). In this letter, the pope declared that we cannot “put our own faith between parentheses” and deemed “impossible” an interreligious dialogue “in the strict sense of the word.” However, Benedict XVI advocated an intercultural dialogue “which goes further into the cultural consequences of religious choices.” (Sources: apic/imedia/Osservatore Romano)
